


born to make history, huh?

by annesbonny



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Skating, Alternate Universe - Sports, Comedy, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Figure skating au let's go, Humor, Like as an author and in terms of having the characters reference it, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Romance, Social Media, The author making various pride and prejudice references, at least i hope it's funny
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:47:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29062326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annesbonny/pseuds/annesbonny
Summary: Alex Claremont-Diaz has been at the forefront of Men’s figure skating for years now. With numerous US and Four Continents titles under his belt, he lacks only one thing: a gold medal in a global competition.Alex has been skating all his life. He’s the best of the best. Or he would be, if not for the "Prince of British Figure Skating" Henry Windsor. After an incident puts their very public rivalry center stage over the closing of the 2018 Winter Olympics, the boys find themselves pushed together against their will.Perhaps, Alex is willing to concede as he finds himself moving from bitter rivals to friends with Henry, there’s a little more to him than meets the eye.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 15
Kudos: 26





	born to make history, huh?

**Author's Note:**

> my love to G who, when I came to her with this idea in November of 2020, started enabling the shit out of me until she got enlisted as my beta purely based on the sheer amount of ideas we were throwing at each other for this stupid fic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for underage drinking bc i remembered in the edit that America's drinking age is 21 😂

The thing no one told him about the Olympics is how much time he would spend in stairwells. It’s true of most competitions, actually. Or, at least, that’s what Alex discovered at his very first international competition, which admittedly wasn’t the Olympics. It's the one place everyone passes through but no one will stop you if you're stood in the corner of a stairwell landing having a breakdown or, in his case, tearing a paper program to pieces. 

His first Winter Olympics, four years ago, had been remarkably free of any stairwell related breakdowns. 

This time he’s not so lucky. 

The rush of noise from the stadium roars through his ears whenever someone on the floors above or below him opens the doors. Every time he closes his eyes the scoreboard burns behind his lids, seared into them, as if the two points between himself and Henry are determined to haunt him for the rest of his days.

Two points and he's lost his Olympic gold medal to Henry _fucking_ Windsor.

A fortnight of athletes, and programs, and press and _being in the Olympics._ Months and months, going on years, of late nights and early mornings at the rink, forgoing nights out, throwing himself into jumps until he finally mastered a quad flip. All of it shattered by those _two_ stupid points. 

Eventually Raf or Zahra, or maybe June, will come and get him. Coax him back into the stadium for the press conference and the medal ceremony. Where he will smile and simper and pose for photos like he hasn’t just had his dreams stepped on _again_.

But Alex needs a second to tear his hair out without caring if an opportunistic photographer looking to sell the rivalry angle will get a look at the thundercloud on his face.

He lets the paper scraps flutter out of his hands at last. Twisting in the air as they fall to the floor and with them, Alex lets out his breath at last. He needs to be calmer for the press conference. If he wants to pull up the charming, arrogant, flashing grin that the press loves. That the sponsors love. 

He needs to be okay with coming second. 

“Alex, are you in here?” The call comes from the floor above him, accompanied by the clamour of the stadium, before the door shuts and he can clearly hear soft footsteps coming down the stairs. His sister looks sympathetically at him. “Raf sent me to find you, he says the organisers are calling you for interviews… if you’re ready?”

“I’m fine, June.” His voice is remarkably even, given how much his brain is churning. 

It’s not quite what she asked, but it also is. She wraps an arm around him, covered in the red sleeve of her own Team USA jacket, as she pulls him gently towards the stairs. She says nothing for a moment. Then:

“You did really well,” June prompts quietly. It doesn’t really help Alex feel any better. He lets out a heavy, beleaguered, sigh, and gets an elbow in the side for it. “Second place at the Olympics isn’t bad going, you know?” 

“I know.” 

“Then why are you looking like you just got unfairly disqualified?”

“Because!” he says, as if that explains anything at all.

“Ah, I see,” she nods sagely, “It starts with Henry and ends with Windsor?”

“June.” 

He'd be less annoyed, he thinks, if his performance had been less than technically perfect. If he'd already been behind from the short program scores. If this wasn't his fourth consecutive loss to Henry. If, if, _if._

There's no _if_ about the two points of difference that Alex had to watch Henry's infuriatingly neutral kiss-and-cry reaction to. A demure smile, a wave, a nod. That’s all he gets from the man who just stepped on his Olympic dreams. 

_It’s fine,_ he tells himself. _It’s just another competition. It’s fine._

It’s not a redemption, or a battle, or a showdown, or anything else Alex has built it up in his mind to be. But he knows that the voice trying to reassure him of that doesn’t really belong to him. It belongs to someone more sensible. Someone like June, or even Nora. The voice that belongs to him rages. Bitter against having been snubbed a top spot on the podium in favour of Henry... _again._

“I’m sorry your archnemesis got gold.” 

“He’s _not_ my archnemesis, oh my God,” Alex rolls his eyes, pulling out of her arm and pushing open the door back to the main stadium. She follows hot on his heels as he heads towards the press conference room. There had been one after the short program too.

But he’d been in the lead then. 

“I’m sorry would you prefer ‘ _bitter rival?’”_ June teases, “Or what was the other one I saw on Twitter… Oh yeah, your ‘ _ultimate foe.’”_

Alex twists his head, scowling back at her. She holds her hands up defensively, but the corners of her mouth quirk upwards at the expression on his face. At least _she_ finds his global humiliation entertaining.

He reminds himself, for perhaps the millionth time, that it’s not _actually_ as bad as all that. He had performed his absolute best, and it showed in his scores. A personal best short program score, and what a place to get it.

“I was just… so close,” he says, and June’s face softens. She and Evan won their gold medal days ago, and she’s not the kind to rub it in his face. She’s his big sister, and she bullies him, but she’s never mean. June Claremont-Diaz doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. 

He’s more aware of it than ever, when she reaches out and tugs him into a tight hug. “You did good, Alex.”

He hugs her back , just for a second. 

“Now put on your happy face so Zahra’s not as likely to throttle you,” she says, grinning as she breaks the hug. Alex rolls his eyes, taking a second to plaster a large, alarmingly fake grin on her face, and June snorts. “No, no, stop. I take it back. Go back to scowling it suits you better.” 

“Hey!”

“Alex,” someone calls to him, and both he and June look up to see Zahra holding the door to the press room open. Her hand wrapped around her ever present thermos and a binder in her hands. No doubt full of all of his and June’s information, as if she’s not had that shit memorised for years.

“You’re late,” Zahra says, taking in the sour expression on his face with narrowed eyes. Zahra has had the fortune - or misfortune, as she’d probably say if asked - of knowing Alex since he was thirteen years old. “Please tell me you don’t need a briefing before we head into this press conference.” 

“I’m good, Z,” he waves her off, as he walks forward. This time painting a more believable smile onto his face. It almost manages to come across as genuine. 

“Just… don’t start any fights. Please.”

“No fights, got it.” 

“And tone down the charm offensive today, okay?” she straightens his jacket with her free hand, brushing off his shoulders as he fights the urge to slouch and scowl at her again. 

Zahra has managed him almost as long as Rafael Luna - stood at her shoulder with an imperceptible impression on his face, saying nothing - has been his coach. Part of the well oiled machine that it takes to wrangle Alex Claremont-Diaz, internationally acclaimed men’s single figure skater, four time world silver medallist. 

_Silver._

Now an Olympic silver medallist too.

His smile almost slips.

The organiser clocks Alex’s entrance as he walks towards the table at the room and Zahra lets the door swing shut behind her. He runs a hand through his dark curls, arranging them into a naturally dishevelled look that he knows will make him look best in the photos that come out later on pure instinct. The narcissistic part of him thinks that if he can’t skate better than Henry he can at least look better than him in the news. 

It’s not an easy task, he recognises, sitting down to Henry’s right, but if anyone can pull it off it’s Alex.

The bronze medallist on Henry’s other side looks utterly disinterested in both them and the room full of paparazzi and reporters. The photographers are all clamouring over each other in the two meter space in front of him. This is the one part of competing Alex has never really got used to, as much as he doesn’t mind it. 

Everyone wants a piece of him.

The smile stays in place against the flash of cameras as Alex leans back in his chair and waits for it all to subside. Not looking at any one particular camera.

“If we could start the press conference, please,” the organiser calls over the din of the room. It quiets slowly, the flashes subsiding as the photographers pull back at last. Giving way to rows of eager journalists, all with their recording devices and notepads waiting to hang off their every word. 

Satisfied at last with the quiet, the organiser smiles from beside the TV Camera set up. “First of all, congratulations to all three skaters from the podium. An amazing performance from you all, but I think we’ll start with Henry?”

There's a general murmur of assent from the room, the muffled sound of more photographs taken. Alex steals a sideways glance towards Henry sitting in the middle, _first place,_ seat. He pushes some errant blond strands out of his face, nodding amicably at the organiser. 

“So, it was a world record free skate, for you. Your second gold medal of the season, your first Olympic gold. How are you feeling about it all?”

“Of course, I’m delighted to be here at the Olympics,”-- _of course--_ “My programs were both fairly clean, and I was really happy with my jumps. And I’m so grateful to have competed against Hiro and Alexander,” --here, a soft, bland smile as he says Alex’s full name, though no one else in the figure skating community _ever_ calls him anything other than _Alex--_ “it’s an honour to compete against you both, and to stand on the podium with you.”

It’s the perfect answer. So perfect Henry might as well be reading off a script. Alex wonders, briefly, if his coaches teach him this as well as everything he does on the ice. 

There’s talent to what he does, to be sure. A grace with which Henry moves, and the irreplicable way with which he throws himself into jumps. A way he does it that only Henry’s father ever truly mastered. But along with Henry’s innate talent and musicality, there’s also as much coaching as his stupid posh-english-boy money can buy, Alex has no doubt. Shaan Srivastava was a world champion three times over himself, and now he coaches Henry. And before that, Alex knows Henry was coached by his own father. 

The former king of figure skating. 

Not that Alex cares or anything, he’s just scoped out his main competition over the past five years. 

He almost misses the question that comes his way at last. “And you, Alex, it’s your second Olympics, is that right?”

Alex nods, “Yeah, that’s right,” he drawls, throwing a look across at Henry. “And just like _Henry_ says, it’s an _honour_ to be on the podium together.”

He’s not sure if the tapping of the pen that he can hear is Zahra’s.

“So you’re happy with your score?” 

Alex's nails dig into his palms underneath the table. It’s the obvious question for him, and god would it _kill_ these journalists to get a bit more inventive? He can feel Raf and Zahra's wary gazes from the side of the room as he nods. Not trusting himself to speak again yet, he takes a sip of water. 

"Very happy," he says after putting the glass back down, and it almost sounds true. "I skated my best program today, and if that's two points less than the Prince of Figure skating, I guess that'll have to do."

Alex tries to make it sound like a joke. The press are familiar with his sarcasm. He is always bravado and charm and wide, toothy grins. But the bitterness must come through in his tone, because in the periphery of his vision, Zahra's fingers clench tight around her thermos. 

There's a nervous ripple of laughter through the room, punctuated by the clicking of cameras, and Alex twists his head slightly. Henry's quizzical gaze is on him. Lips pulled down just so at the corners. It's as much of a reaction that Alex as ever seen him give.

_Good._

The night of the gala, a week after Alex’s loss - not _loss,_ his _second place_ \- someone decides to throw a party. It’s probably the hockey players, elated from competing in their final matches today. Nora’s final was days ago, the US women’s team cinching their second ever Olympic gold. Alex was genuinely delighted for her. Screaming in the stands with June as the final buzzer went off. 

But she and Alex have been out partying ever since, with the exception of tonight. After they had all poured out of the stadium at last, riotous shouts of gold-medal hockey players and delighted fans filling the night air, it was two in the morning. It’s two in the morning, and freezing cold, and perhaps that’s why he lets Nora pull him to the last real party of the Olympics so easily. 

He doesn’t want to think about how much he might regret it in the morning.

His mind keeps flitting unhelpfully back to the gala. Where even there he'd not been able to outdo the expectations he had set himself.

The gala skates are usually the highlight of Alex’s competition season. 

Competing is his bread and butter. He pours his heart and soul into every routine he performs, but the gala is different. The gala is freedom of expression that the rigid rules of Olympic competition in particular would never allow. Alex’s desire to push his boundaries and bring something new to the rink every year is just one of the things that gets him in trouble, from time to time.

And yet tonight, once again, he finds himself wondering if he was outshone by-

“Alex?” Nora’s voice pulls him from his thoughts as she slides her arm through his. He realises, from the expectant look on her face, that he has missed a question somewhere. 

"Huh?"

Nora just laughs. "I _said,_ you're being weirdly quiet."

"Oh."

He hadn't meant to be. At least, not enough for Nora to notice, but then she can be frighteningly perceptive sometimes. 

"You wanna tell me what's going through that thick skull of yours?" She rubs his head with her knuckles and he winces, ducking out of her attempt as she laughs. "Usually you'd be letting loose right now, so what is _up?"_

As if in answer to her question, as they push open the door to the common room where the party is going on, Alex sees a blond head of hair duck out of sight across the room. Nora must see it too, because she notices the tension rise in Alex's shoulders again.

She shoots him a calculating look. "Ah, so this is about his royal highness over there."

"Ugh, don't call him that."

"What, you mean you don't like all the articles that make you out to be the dashing rogue in contrast to his prince charming act?" Mocking shock drips from her tone, and he pouts at her.

"Oh my god, I'm not talking about this today, where's June?" 

Nora just laughs again, wrapping her arm back around his shoulders. Her short, black-painted fingernails dig in as she gives a reassuring squeeze. 

"Listen, I'm not gonna do June's emotional support nonsense. It sucks that you came second to him, but Alex, this is the _Olympics._ There won't be another one for four years so like, enjoy it or whatever. Don't let him ruin it for you."

"This has nothing to do with Henry."

"Sure," Nora smirks sideways at him. He doesn't appreciate her being this amused by his bitterness, "Whatever you say." She leaves him with that, splitting in search of the rest of the women's hockey team and many bad decisions he's sure to hear about tomorrow. 

He is painfully aware of Henry across the room all night. The way he moves as inescapable from his notice as it had been out on the ice just hours ago. He's not on the makeshift dance floor that has formed, instead flitting round the edges with pursed lips and a disapproving expression. 

Alex needs to get quite incredibly drunk if he’s going to be able to deal with this tonight, he decides. 

Everywhere he goes, it’s as though all he can hear is everyone gushing about Henry. _Henry’s_ medal and _Henry’s_ gala skate and freeskate and Henry. Henry. _Henry._

He snatches one of the cheap beers off the table, and thanks god for the lack of June's watchful gaze reminding him he's still a year shy of technically being allowed it.

He drifts, and chats and drinks. All the while trying, and failing, not to _think._

The thing with Henry, he can't help but thinking, is that he skates so _well._ It’s the first thing Alex ever knew about him, when he saw it for the first time at just fourteen years old. Alex hadn’t been old enough to qualify to compete in the Worlds that year. But Henry had. 

Henry had, at just fifteen. 

Artistic, fluid grace bleeding into what might as well have been poetry in motion - for all that Alex doesn’t care for that crap - and it had won Henry his first Bronze medal. Arms thrown wide as he landed every jump without ever falling out of beat with the music. The upward, almost arrogant jut of his jaw when he did it. The perfectly poised body as he moved from spiral to spin, rotating too fast to see clearly but still… beautiful. 

Henry skated like no one else. No one else Alex had ever seen. 

The other thing is that Henry must hate him too. Alex, who is not worse than him on any technical skill but has been biting at his heels fuelled by sheer determination and spite for four years. It’s not that Alex had set out to hate Henry, when he first actually met him four years ago. It was just that, like most things in life, the reality was bitterly disappointing.

Whatever pretty pictures Henry could paint with his body out on the ice, the boy Alex had met off of it was a shell. Beautiful, yes, but distant. Bland and boring and utterly disinterested in Alex, which stung in a way he has never cared to understand.

While he’s never understood it, it hasn’t stopped the comparisons drawn between them either. Whether it's the press commenting on their ' _poetically diametric origins'_ or people on Twitter voicing their less-than-qualified opinions on who skated better. The comparisons linger and fester in his mind until he finds himself doing it as well. Watching side-by-side clips people upload to YouTube of his and Henry’s jumps and step sequences. Reading comments that are praising his athleticism but always noting Henry’s undeniable artistry. 

Alex stopped paying attention to where he was going a few drinks ago. 

“Hey, watch i- Oh.” Alex looks up, colliding with the firm body of another athlete, to see the very object of his derision, Henry Windsor, looking down at him. Completely unimpressed, with half a drink spilled over his front. 

He looks better, out of the context of stuffy press rooms filled with journalists and paparazzi. A little overdressed for a party like this, considering Alex is still in the jeans and bomber jacket he’d changed into after the Hockey finals. But with his sandy hair looser than he keeps it for skating, high cheekbones, and friendly smile, he looks less guarded than he had last time Alex saw him. Or he had, for the brief moment before he recognised who he had bumped into. 

“Alex,” he bites, lips turning into a frown as he brushes a hand over the damp shirt now plastered to his chest. “A pleasure as always.”

Through the buzz of slightly too much cheap beer, Alex feels a spike of indignation at Henry’s words.

“Windsor,” he nods, “didn’t expect to see you here.” 

“No?” 

“Parties like this… they don’t really seem your vibe.” 

Alex is being antagonistic. He’s aware of it, but Henry is too perfect. His buttons are begging to be pushed, just like they always are. Alex can’t resist. It’s worth it, when he sees the almost undetectable flicker of irritation in Henry’s face as he fights to keep it from turning into a glare. 

“Well, I’m having a lovely time, actually, Alex.” 

“Glad to hear it,” Alex keeps up the false camaraderie that Henry offers him, like they’re two athletes who get on rather than people with four years of animosity under their belt. “I’ve not seen you around much tonight, though. Do you not fancy dancing off the ice, Windsor?" 

"Not if I can help it," Henry bites. Alex wants to punch him, just a little.

“Of course,” he nods, “Can’t go having too much fun, and all that. Wouldn’t be good for the image.” 

Something in Henry’s perfect jaw ticks, but still he refuses to sink to the barb. Alex is more than used to simpering and posing and smiling at sponsors, but Henry seems capable of wearing that mask all the fucking time.

"I think it’s time for me to go, actually, Alex,” 

As he moves to brush past Alex and melt back into the crowd, Alex spins with him. 

“Yeah, I’m sure all this is just _exhausting_ for you.”

Henry stops, turning back to Alex with a raised eyebrow. The expression on his face is curious, like he’s not intimately aware he’s beat Alex to every single international gold where they’ve been competing in competition together for the past four years. So, Alex continues, because he has very little sense of what’s good for him in the moment. “I mean, the press, the medals and the glory. All the people falling at his feet

The something tight in Henry’s expression lingers, as he says with a roll of his eyes: "You get used to it."

And isn’t that just the icing on Alex’s shitty cake. Henry who wins medals, and has the press and the public fawning over him, who can apparently do shit like today with ease and _“gets used to it.”_ Henry, who is the embodiment of everything traditional and historical with figure skating, and Alex, who is the one trying to carve his path away from that. Alex, who has had quite enough.

"Are you _shitting_ me, right now?"

“Excuse me?”

“You get used to it?” Alex scoffs, “What, like an Olympic gold is just another fucking day for you? _'Look at me, I’m Henry Windsor with my world titles that I could get in my_ sleep! _'”_

“That’s not what I-” Henry starts, before his mouth snaps shut. That mask of perfectly unreadable neutrality shifts, before he smiles at Alex in what can only be a mocking way. Smug, and cold, and Alex hates it. “You know what, I’m not even going to bother. I’ll see you at Worlds, Alex.”

He turns to leave again, but Alex refuses to let him have the last word.

“Hey, I’m not done!” he reaches out to grab Henry’s arm but Henry twists out of his grip with such force it sends Alex stumbling back. When he rights himself he’s glaring at a pink-cheeked Henry who’s flustered only for a moment before his face settles into its own firm glare.

Alex steps into Henry’s space, voice loud enough over the rapidly quieting room to be easily heard. He shoves lightly at Henry’s annoyingly firm chest. “The _fuck_ is your problem?!” 

“ _My_ problem?” Henry snaps back. That cold, posh sneer has never been more irritating. He gives Alex a little shove of his own, and someone in the crowd - Alex _thinks_ it’s one of the Hockey players - starts jeering them on. “What’s _your_ problem, Alex?”

“Maybe my _problem_ is you acting like a stuck-up-”

"Alex!" Nora's voice pierces the haze of anger and alcohol burning through his system, and she puts a hand on his chest. He forgets how fucking strong she is until she’s shoving him back from Henry. Far more effectively than either boy was shoving each other. “Just _leave_ it.”

He doesn’t want to. He still wants nothing more than to punch Henry in his stupidly perfect jaw. 

But June’s here now as well, looking from Nora to Alex to Henry in bewilderment. There would be nothing more embarrassing than getting dragged away from a fight by his best friend and his sister, and he tells himself that’s why he walks away. Throwing a last glare at Henry before he storms off.

The party mood has altogether left him. 

* * *

### ALEX CLAREMONT-DIAZ AND HENRY WINDSOR COME TO BLOWS AT OLYMPICS AFTER PARTY

#### by Phoebe Clark

It’s one of the better known rivalries of winter sports, but in the early hours of yesterday morning, those following figure skating’s hottest enemies had something new to chew on. As the 2018 Winter Olympics drew to a close, videos surfaced online of an afterparty in which Claremont-Diaz and Windsor can be seen getting into a brief physical altercation before being separated. 

Alex Claremont-Diaz, 19 - son of prominent Texan politician, Ellen Claremont, and Californian Senator, Oscar Diaz - has been at the forefront of Men’s figure skating for years now. With numerous US and Four Continents titles under his belt, he lacks only one thing: a gold medal in a global competition. Many, including Claremont-Diaz himself, believed these Olympic Games would finally be his opportunity to defeat long-term rival, British skater Henry Windsor. 

Sadly for Team USA, who still finished the games with an admirable 23 medals overall, it was not to be. Claremont-Diaz placed second after the men’s free skate a fortnight ago, despite a record-breaking performance in the short program. For Claremont-Diaz, it seems this loss was bitterly felt, with tensions boiling to the point of the physical altercation in the athlete’s village. 

This follows the heated press conference earlier in the games, in which the tension between the two skaters could be cut with a knife. With Claremont-Diaz stating that he "looks forward to more silver medals" when asked if he was looking forward to the upcoming season. The bitter jab can only have been for Windsor, to whom Claremont-Diaz consistently places second. Many are now questioning the actions of both Claremont-Diaz and Windsor, with one official reminding them both that “[the IOC] expect better of world class athletes,” when asked for comment. This wouldn’t be the first time a figure skating rivalry has ended in physical altercation, but many believe the Olympic stage was hardly the place for it, when these athletes should be acting as role models…

#### Read More Olympics Coverage on Buzzfeed Sports

* * *

Zahra is Not Happy with Alex.

She contains it through the entire flight back. He sits sullenly through almost sixteen hours of travelling, stuffed up in his seat between Nora and June with a battered copy of Prisoner of Azkaban in his hands. Instead of reading it he just keeps tugging at the already dogeared pages until June finally plucks it from him and shoves it down the side of her own seat. 

He ducks most of the press attention after they land, the athletes moving like a herd through arrivals, though they’re more than keen to talk to him. He keeps a determined, relaxed smile on his face as he and June meet their parents and Leo, and his Mom pulls him into a hug and tells him how proud she is of him. Zahra only pulls him to the side after all of this is done, and reminds him that he’s to be at her office at 8am sharp on Monday.

As if that’s a reasonable time for a meeting.

Still he manages to show up promptly and punctually, if only because June drags him out of bed so she can go to a physio appointment while he gets torn a new one by their agent. Their agent, who looks like she might just murder him, and the only thing stopping her is the very large mug of coffee steaming on her desk. 

“Why did you do it?”

“Well, he-” 

“No, actually, you know what, I don’t _care!”_

“He started it!”

“What are you, _twelve?”_ Zahra snaps, “It was the _Olympics,_ you little shit! What part of the ' _representing your entire country'_ speech did you miss? There was one thing I told you not to do. _One._ ”

"They're being overdramatic, I barely touched him." It's the truth. Alex has, unfortunately, seen the video of the fight - if it can indeed be called that. It was barely eligible for the word; more like a playground hissy fit than anything of real weight. Two grown men, athletes, shoving each other back and forth, biting angry, catty words at each other, but nothing of substance.

Nora, far too chipper for someone who'd had that many Jaegermeister shots, had delighted in showing it to him the morning after when it was already well on it's way to viral.

"Right now the fact that Team USA got 23 medals should be the only thing in the news cycle, but all they can talk about is you and your grudge match with Windsor!"

“I… He _started_ it!” Alex seethes again, because that is the important bit. As much as it is stretching the truth. 

Zahra looks unimpressed.

"Is that what you want me to tell your sponsors? 'He started it?'"

Without Zahra, Alex's job would be quite impossible. She has been at his side and on his back for so long, with words of encouragement when he needs them but admonishments too. And sometimes, like now, she has the unenviable task of reminding him that his job, his skating, his _life_ would also be quite impossible without sponsors. 

He sucks in a tight breath through gritted teeth and meets her gaze across the table. “Just… tell me how to fix it.” 

“I’ve got an idea.” She sounds a little gleeful, which is never good for Alex. “But you’re not gonna like it.”

  
  
  



End file.
